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Two
Max navigatedthe Porsche through traffic on the Strip, the Tangier’s dome taunting him in the distance. Jason had been gone three months, but the casino was still there like some kind of ageless relic that had survived centuries of war andstrife.
Kind of like JasonDraper.
Except Max was determined that Jason wouldn’t survive this. Not when it was all said and done. The Tangier would stand, but it would remain under Jason’s control over Max’s deadbody.
And the same conditions would have to apply for Jason to remain inVegas.
He and Abby had had a relatively quiet three months since the fire. Abby had been devastated by the loss of her house and had immediately taken up residence with him, the only upside to everything that had happened other than Jason’s departure. Max loved having her with him night and day, loved waking up to the weight of her in his arms, her hair splayed out across his chest. Loved falling asleep to the sound of her even breathing after he ravaged herbody.
After she ravagedhis.
It hadn’t been all play. He’d set up an office downtown under the name of his father’s old company, Cartwright Holdings. The offices had become a staging ground for the Syndicate’s takeover of the city, the acquisition of the DeLuca family operation, the vetting of their soldiers who expressed an interest in staying on under the Syndicate’sleadership.
At first, Nico and the other Syndicate partners had been frequent companions in the office, bringing Max up to speed on overlap between the Syndicate’s interests and the DeLuca operations that would be folded into theorganization.
Little by little, Max had gotten his head around the scope of the Vegas operation. Now it was mostly just him, alone in the office except for Jane, the young woman Abby had hired to answer phones and manage paperwork, and Carlos Rodriguez, a DeLuca soldier who’d been only too happy to see the end of FredoDeLuca.
Abby had given her notice at the Tangier immediately following the fire and hadn’t yet found another job. Max had been glad when she hadn’t been in a hurry to find something else. She’d never had anyone take care of her, had spent her whole life hustling and working and struggling. She deserved time to regroup, to decide how she wanted to spend the rest of her life. Giving her a safe place to make those decisions was his privilege. Having her around all the time was icing on thecake.
Jason’s return threatened to overturn their newfound peace — and that was something Max couldn’tallow.
He slowed down and pulled into the Bellagio. A few minutes later, he was handing the keys to the Porsche to the valet and walking through the front doors of thecasino.
Tourists probably thought every casino was different, but anyone who lived in Vegas saw the homogenization beneath the artifice. The decor might be unique, the various shows and restaurants named in keeping with each facility’s theme, but that was thefacade.
The foundation was the same, the setup of gaming tables in one of two standard formations, the bars and restaurants and at least one all-you-can-eat buffet stocked with subpar food, the mini-marts loaded with kitschy, branded souvenirs and overpriced snack food and bottledwater.
They were playgrounds, theme parks for grown-ups.
He made his way to the elevators and pressed the button for the Penthouse. Nico had been renting the suite for the last three months. His presence was sporadic — he often went home to Rome or to one of the other Syndicate cities — but he liked having the penthouse there if one of them needed it. Angel was sometimes with him, but Max had never seen their daughter Stella. He could only assume Nico thought the city too seedy for his onlychild.
Max didn’t blame him, although Nico’s opinion didn’t lessen Max’s love for the city that had been his home his entirelife.
He exited the elevator and started toward the man standing in front of the double doors. He wasn’t fooled by the man’s suit — like all of Nico’s impeccably dressed guards, this one undoubtedly packed a semiautomatic weapon outfitted with a silencer somewhere under hisjacket.
And that wouldn’t be all. Since joining the Syndicate, Max had learned that all the organization’s men, from foot soldiers to bosses, were required to attain mastery in some form of martial art and hand-to-hand combat. Nico used weapons only when necessary, Farrell preferred to beat opponents to a bloody pulp, and Christophe liked the cold sterility of firearms: the Syndicate’s men were required to master all three methods ofviolence.
The realization had given Max additional respect for the men who were now his employers. When he’d been in Afghanistan, any order that came from a suit in Washington was met with suspicion and even derision. Most of them had never seen combat, had no idea what Max and his brothers were upagainst.
It was their immediate commanders they respected, whose orders they followed without question, and Max had been surprised to feel a similar brand of brotherhood with Nico and the other men of theSyndicate.
These weren’t men sitting in an ivory tower, paying other people to do their dirty work. They were well-trained, willing to put themselves on the line, and had already suffered sacrifices of their own. Nico had literally taken a bullet meant for Max, and while Nico hadn’t actively jumped in front of him, Max had the feeling Nico wouldhave.
All of which made Max even more willing to jointhem.
Thankfully, he was already skilled in two of the three required skillsets — weapons and hand-to-hand training — and had been given a temporary pass on martial arts while he brought Vegas undercontrol.
The guard nodded and stepped aside as Max came to the door. Visitors were typically patted down for weapons during private meetings with Nico, but Max was no longer avisitor.
He’d gotten used to the suited men who guarded the Syndicate’s leaders, had gotten used to the old-fashioned manners of everyone in the organization from the soldiers on the street right up to Nico. Even Farrell was well-mannered.
He was an asshole, but he was a manneredasshole.
Max knocked on the door and a few seconds later heard the lock disengage. The door opened and Nico stood on the otherside.
“Max,” he said, “I’m glad you’re here. I came as fast as Icould.”
